WWE News: Triple H Announces WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament Coming in January
The United Kingdom has historically been a massive part of WWE’s market and has influenced the WWE product and programming for decades. WWE held as many of 32 live events in the United Kingdom in 2016, which makes the UK audience a pivotal part of WWE’s global success outside of the United States.
This morning in London, WWE held a press conference in the O2 arena, which was rumored to be the reveal of a major announcement involving the WWE Network. It was announced that Triple H, William Regal, and Finn Balor would all be in attendance for the event, but the expectations heading into this morning’s press conference would be about NXT and its continued growth. However, WWE had something else planned.
Instead, it was announced by Triple H that WWE will be creating the WWE United Kingdom Championship to be decided in a tournament to air next month on the WWE Network. The massive two-day event will be a sixteen man tournament to determine the first WWE UK Champion and will be held in Blackpool inside the historic Empress Ballroom. WWE will be selling tickets as early as today at noon in the United States.
Much like the Cruiserweight Classic did earlier this year on the WWE Network, WWE officials are planning for the WWE United Kingdom Championship tournament to be the launching pad for a weekly show for the UK on the WWE Network shortly after the tournament concludes in January. The belief is WWE will work with many promotions in the UK, including Rev Pro, PROGRESS, and others like ICW and OTT in Ireland.
In addition to those plans, WWE officials have also put some serious thought into the presentation of the tournament. Michael Cole will be providing the play by play commentary for the show, but he’ll be joined by the newest member of WWE’s on-screen announce team, Nigel McGuinness, who will be joining Cole for the tournament and will likely continue with WWE once the weekly UK programming begins soon after.
It has been rumored over the past few days that Nigel McGuinness was headed to WWE after leaving Ring of Honor, but the assumption was that he’d be headed to the WWE Performance Center. Of course, that may still be the case, but his popularity in the UK and in the United States makes him the perfect addition to the show and his wrestling career being cut short by injury won’t stop him from being a part of WWE after all.
Along with McGuiness, some of the competitors for the event were revealed during the press conference. It was announced that UK stars such as Pete Dunn, Trent Severn, Tyler Bate, and Ireland’s Jordan Devlin, Tucker, and Wolfgang were all to participate in WWE’s UK tournament. More names will also be announced over the coming weeks. The taping of the tournament will take place in Blackpool on January 14 and 15.
It is being rumored that WWE’s launch of this tournament and potentially featuring some of the best talent the United Kingdom has to offer on a weekly show on the WWE Network was a response to World of Sports desire to open their own wrestling promotion, which would have taken away a lot of business from WWE.
As a result, WWE will be featuring the best talent from the UK that would have signed with WOS, but it’s being said that WWE may not be signing them to exclusive deals to appear on WWE programming. Instead, the goal would be to sign them to deals that would allow them to dictate any booking outside of WWE. That will obviously put World of Sports at a big disadvantage in the United Kingdom’s market for wrestling.
[Featured Image by WWE]
